In its main editorial Sunday, the New York Times, the major
voice of what passes for liberalism in America, openly defends the right
of the US government to assassinate anyone it pleases. The only
restriction the Times suggests is that the president should be
required to have his selection of murder victims rubber-stamped by a
secret court like the one that now approves 99.99 percent of all
electronic eavesdropping requests.

The apologia for killing
begins with a blatant lie about the US assassination program using
missiles fired from CIA-operated drone aircraft flying along the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Times claims, citing official
US government sources: "The drone program has been effective, killing
more than 400 Al Qaeda militants this year alone, according to American
officials, but fewer than 10 noncombatants."

Actually, Pakistani
government officials estimated the number of civilians killed by drone
attacks in 2009 alone at more than 700, with an even higher figure this
year, as the Obama administration has rained missiles and bombs on the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.(See "US drone missiles slaughtered 700 Pakistani civilians in 2009" .)

A report in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn
concluded, "For each Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US
drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of
those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim
authorities."

The Times editors cannot be unaware of
these well-established figures, since their own journalists have
reported a civilian death toll from US missile strikes in Pakistan of
some 500 by April 2009, and 100 to 500 more through April 2010. They lie
shamelessly and deliberately in order to conceal the significance of
their endorsement of such widespread killing.

The editorial
claims that US drone missile attacks are legal under international law
as self-defense, but this is flatly rejected by human rights groups and
legal experts, except those who work as paid apologists for the CIA and
Pentagon. The United States is not at war with Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Yemen or Somalia, but US missiles have struck the territory of all these
countries and annihilated their citizens.

In a 29-page report to
the United Nations Human Rights Council in June, the UN Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Philip Alston, rejected the
doctrine of "preemptive self-defense" employed by the Bush and Obama
administrations, as well as the state of Israel, and declared that a
targeted killing outside actual warfare "is almost never likely to be
legal."

In an accompanying statement, Alston pointed out the
consequences if such a doctrine were to become universal. He declared:
"If invoked by other states, in pursuit of those they deem to be
terrorists and to have attacked them, it would cause chaos."

The Times
concedes, "it is not within the power of a commander in chief to simply
declare anyone anywhere a combatant and kill them, without the
slightest advance independent oversight." The editorial argues that such
arbitrary killings can be prevented through procedural safeguards of a
purely cosmetic character.

These would include the Obama
administration making public "its standards for putting people on
terrorist or assassination lists," limiting targets to "only people who
are actively planning or participating in terror, or who are leaders of
Al Qaeda or the Taliban"; capturing instead of killing, where possible;
and "oversight outside the administration," i.e., the aforementioned
judicial review by a body like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court. Yes, if only the Nazis had followed "proper procedures."

In the mealymouthed language that has become typical of the Times
as it provides "liberal" justifications for the crimes of US
imperialism, the editors insist that in the case of US citizens, "the
government needs to employ some due process before depriving someone of
life," adding that, "If practical, the United States should get
permission from a foreign government before carrying out an attack on
its soil."

The Times editorial admits that in the
much-publicized case of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born Muslim cleric now
living in Yemen, the Obama administration has acted in a manner
diametrically opposed to the procedure the newspaper claims to favor.
Awlaki has been targeted for assassination, based on criteria that are
secret and unreviewable. The Justice Department has gone to court to
assert the "state secrets" privilege to quash a lawsuit brought by the
American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of Awlaki's father, seeking to
compel the government to justify or rescind its death sentence.

No
evidence has been presented that Awlaki, a longtime publicist for
Islamic fundamentalism, has engaged in actual terrorist actions. And as
the Times itself admits, "If the United States starts killing
every Islamic radical who has called for jihad, there will be no end to
the violence." But the editors are nonetheless willing to place their
confidence in the Obama administration, even to the point of giving it
powers of life and death over citizens of the US and other countries
alike.

The Times editorial reeks of cynicism. It
advances arguments that convince no one, and are not intended to
convince, only to provide a screen of words for a policy of imperialist
barbarism and reaction. It is one more demonstration that, within the US
financial aristocracy, there is no constituency whatsoever for the
defense of democratic rights.

The open reactionaries like the Wall Street Journal
and Fox News display their bloodlust unashamedly. The "liberals" like
the Times prefer a dose of hypocritical moralizing and legalistic
quibbling. The consequences for humanity are the same.

Patrick Martin writes for the World Socialist Website (wsws.org), a forum for socialist ideas & analysis & published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).